Zcash Mining - My Experience

I couldn't resist doing a mining test on Zcash considering the pricing started out so high initially and there was so much talk about it recently. If you guys have been following my blog for awhile you will know I have done a lot of mining in the past. This has included CPU, GPU, and ASIC mining. I sold out basically all of my GPU equipment in 2015 before the rise of Ethereum mining. I still have an 8 core Xeon processor that would be able to do a mining test on Zcash. Basically when I first set up the test Zcash was still worth over $1000 / coin but sinking.

One of the reasons I don't like mining contracts is they are way too long typically. Six months is an eternity in crypto-currencies and a lot of these contracts are for a year. Really what it boils down to it the sellers of the mining contracts have a very short window to try to market contracts that are enticing to an end user. They are often just selling a power spread. Let's say they have $0.04 / kilowatt hour power. Well they are basically selling an end user $0.10+ kilowatt hour power essentially. Obviously the end user doesn't have the money wrapped up in the equipment but it reminds me of buying an option vs buying a stock. With a stock you can sell it if the price goes down but with these mining contracts they just feel like a wasting asset. With mining equipment you can sell it if the mining doesn't work out. That is why I feel like GPU mining makes the most sense for small to mid size mining operations. At least the GPUs can be used for gaming and graphic design.

Right now I don't have a GPU that was going to work to do the test but I do have the 8 core Xeon and the algorithm that Zcash uses is called Equihash. My Xeon processor could do about the same work that 1 good GPU could do. I was getting 7.2 H/s which was close to the Genesis Mining contract of 7.5 H/s for $280 for the year. See if I would have bought that and then the price of Zcash has fallen to $250. The thing with Zcash is that I'm not so sure it isn't a scam at this point. @fluffypony who is a very respected developer for Monero has been talking smack about Zcash on Twitter. It is kind of funny and he is probably right. He always seems to be right.

I was profiting about $1 / day but then the price tanked and a lot of people had bought the mining contracts so the difficulty is still pretty high. I decided to pull the plug on the operation and ultimately I only was able to cash out $2 and I spent about $10 on power.

STEEM is going to switch to Equihash soon and this was a good test for me to get ready for that. I will have to jump on it immediately because there will be others that will turn a lot more hashing power toward it than I have right now.

One more note. I'm using OpenSuSE LEAP 42.1 and if you are mining with nheqminer and you are trying to build the miner there are guides for Ubuntu. The equivalent of the Ubuntu Build essentials can be achieved in OpenSuSE with "sudo zypper install -t pattern devel_basis"

Once again mining is tough and crypto is volatile so despite the fact that I love mining it is tough to make a good profit unless you have low cost or free power and really are on top of your calculations.

In a later post I want to talk about the potential for a solar crypto mining setup utilizing DIY Tesla power walls and solar panels. Good luck if you are trying to mine Zcash!